Field of the Invention
This invention is related to a wheeled or rolling hand cart or hand truck of the type used to manually move articles from place to place. This invention is also related a hand cart that can be rotated into an elevated, horizontal position on the rear of a vehicle for moving the articles loaded on the hand cart from site to site, without requiring the user to lift the hand cart or the articles loaded thereon.
Description of the Prior Art
Hand carts or hand truck are commonly employed to manually transport articles from place to place at a job site or in a warehouse. Normally articles are loaded onto a base or platform of a two wheeled hand cart, and the cart is tilted back so that the hand cart can be pushed from place to place. However, if the articles need to be transported by vehicle from place to place, the articles hand cart must be unloaded from the hand cart and loaded onto the vehicle at the first location and it may be necessary to load the articles loaded back onto a hand truck at the second location.
It has been suggested extra work could be avoided by merely loading the articles onto a vehicle while still loaded on the hand truck. However, it is often difficult to lift such loads in the first place and the additional weight of the hand cart can make loading even more difficult. There have been a number of suggestions to include a feature on the hand truck that could shifted to allow the user to more easily raise a loaded hand truck. U.S. Pat. No. 6,935,656 is one example of a hitch mountable utility cart by raising and lowering the cart frame relative to the wheelbase of the cart. Such devices, however require additional movable parts on a hand cart. Other devices for mounting a hand cart or other wheeled device on the rear of a motor vehicle or similar vehicle are found in the following US Patents and Published Patent Applications. U.S. Pat. No. 5,529,231; U.S. Pat. No. 5,567,107; U.S. Pat. No. 5,738,261; U.S. Pat. No. 6,254,117; U.S. Pat. No. 6,612,615; U.S. Pat. No. 7,341,417: and US Patent Application Publication 2004/0164114. These devices employ hinged or movable components. The instant invention provides a wheeled hand cart that can be lifted into an elevated, horizontal position on a vehicle, such as a truck, sports utility vehicle or off road vehicle, my providing a mechanical advantage to allow the hand cart to be lifted without removing articles stored on the truck. Such a wheeled hand cart would be especially suited for use by sportsmen, who often use four wheeled devices that they have specially constructed to carry equipment. Such devices are often employed by surf fishermen. However, these types of devices do not address the need to load and unload the cart on another vehicle without first unloading the cart itself. The instant invention is believed to supply such a device that is easy to use, but not expensive to construct.